Thank you, Nora Roberts

I don’t know if this message will ever make it to the intended recipient (I tweeted it to her).

But it can’t hurt to try. I want to thank someone who gave my mother many of the little moments of joy she could have in the final years of her life. That person is Nora Roberts.

For the last several years of her life, my mother was confined to a very restricted lifestyle. She had COPD and rheumatoid arthritis, a very unfortunate condition. She was constantly on an oxygen machine, she could hardly go out (and when she did she had to carry a portable tank with her), and she was riddled with other health problems as a result of her fragile conditions.

Anyone that knew her was well aware of her generous spirit. She worked with special ed students, and I’ll always remember the stories she would tell me about how happy they were and how happy that made her. She truly was the most sincere, considerate person I’ll ever know.

But in spite of her kindness, she had a very tough life. Her medical conditions were always a lingering concern, and it ultimately ended her ability to spend time with the people in the community she loved the most. So faced with a life of confinement, she had to find something to pass the time. Reading was what she turned to. Particularly, the novels written by Nora Roberts. For the last five years of my mom’s life, my memory of her will almost always contain a Nora Roberts book. She truly just loved her writing and story-telling abilities. It gave her so much joy, and being able to temporarily escape from the harsh realities of life and delve into the world that Nora created was one of my mother’s strongest retreats.

So I want to thank her. I want to thank her for giving my Mom that release. That escape from the brutal reality that we so often have to experience. Thank you so much, Nora Roberts. I may never meet you, and you may never know me. But you literally changed my mother’s world. And that means everything to me. Knowing that she experienced those shimmers of happiness and glimmers of relief brings so much peace to my heart.